


Eidetic

by Olive343



Category: Worm (Web Serial Novel)
Genre: Complete, Gen, One Shot, Post-Canon, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 20:39:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2123925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olive343/pseuds/Olive343
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>-adjective: of, pertaining to, or constituting visual imagery vividly experienced and readily reproducible with great accuracy and in great detail.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eidetic

It’s finished.  
  
The idea was almost foreign. Laughable. Unreachable.  
  
It’s finished.  
  
 _Finished_.

So now what?  
  
Her ability had only become less and less relevant as time went on, with less and less to go on.  
  
With every stand they made she could feel her heart in her mouth as they were forced to rely on the unpredictability of the titans on their side simply to make it from one hour to the next.  
  
She would like to rest now, but everyone who’s anyone knows her face. Knows her power. And no matter how much she wants to laugh and scream at them all about all of the things they think they know, those are the things that she cannot do.  
  
There are things she cannot let them see, lest she ruin everything.  
  
The question refuses to leave her.  
  
Now what?  
  


* * *

  
Dinah’s room at the Lectica, on a cleaned up street corner in NY-G, seems far too small with the question bouncing around the inside of it.  
  
For a moment she considers going back to school. It was what Faultline had suggested not too long ago, saying something about it doing her good to spend time with her peers.  
  
Act her age. Dinah almost laughed in her face.  
  
Ha. Haha. Tell the funny joke again.  
  
Now what?  
 

* * *

  
She overhears Maddie talking at the door. It’s one of the Wardens, and from her window she can see the commotion as people passing by stop and gawk. It’s not often that they have to make an appearance in part of the city with power running. Most of the villains either left the town or stopped being villains one way or another, so their presence here is more symbolic than anything else.  
  
But they sent Valkyrie, their replacement for Eidolon, and even though she parades with a new name it’s not the one Dinah knows her by.  
  
Valkyrie could have flown in through her window or teleported in or nearly anything else but it seemed she was trying to be polite. She knows it, Valkyrie know it, _everybody knows.  
  
_ The Wardens want to use her ability to help guide their actions. Thinkers, and precognitives especially, who can be guaranteed not to be working for Teacher are, to put it quite simply, few and far between and they want her for the precision her power offers.  
  
She would laugh, but she’s pretty sure Glaistig Uaine would hear her.  
 

* * *

  
She jumps as hands the same size as her own clamp down on her shoulders and she pretends she can’t feel the breath on her neck as _her_ voice breathes in her ear as she tries very hard not to react.  
  
 _“So many died.”_ It starts off old-hat, with the spiel she’s heard time and time again. People always died, but in their world it was simply a matter of how many you could save.  
  
“If only there was something that you could do.” It tries again, moving straight on to the things that would get under her skin the most.  
  
 _“‘Cut ties.’ Could you get anymore vague? I’m sure the girl didn’t appreciate it.”_ It knows she cared. It knows she had agonised over the way to word it to force Taylor to do what she had to but again, even though she knows it the needles slide in and she shakes in lieu of turning and hitting nothing on the mouth.  
  
 _“But I’m sure you can do better, can’t you?”_ That was the crux of it, wasn’t it? The things she can do constantly outweigh the things she’s done.  
  
But she’s like the dog that stares covetously at it’s own reflection. If she reaches for too much then the possibility of losing everything she has already won is far too real. So she fights against her nature as a human and turns away from the possibility of something more, so she can play amongst her delusions of being happy with what she has, among other things.  
  
She wakes up unrested.  
 

* * *

   
Her parents survived Gold Morning.  
  
Dinah feels like there’s something there at the edge of her memories, something very important, but she can’t reach out and connect to it.  
  
They’re unlikely to want for much, especially given they share her last name but it seems her father is working anyway, as he’s sweating when she goes to visit them in the evening.  
  
They’re overjoyed to see her. Quite literally over the moon. Communications broke down after Scion struck, and things were uncertain for a long time. She smiles at them. She hugs them. She does all of the things little girls who haven’t just orchestrated mankind’s survival do with their parents.  
  
This is good, isn’t it?  
  
There’s something else she can’t connect to except this time she can’t ignore it,  it’s out of her head and instead it’s in her parents’ house.  
  
She doesn’t stay for dinner.  
  


* * *

   
Dinah spends her days waiting for some other, cosmic, shoe to drop and her nights with the urging to drop the shoe on her own. It would be easy.  
  
It wouldn’t be the first time.  
  
When she’s not dithering about things she doesn’t have enough control over she’s dithering over something she doesn’t have as much control over as she’d like.  
  
The Wardens expect an answer. Maddie got Valkyrie to leave but she promised her an answer sometime soon.  
  
Soon. What did that even mean? It was a word for stalling and everyone knew it. It was so very easy to just ignore the question and head off into the uncertain ‘soon’ of the future, but everyone wanted something and conspired to twist an answer from her.  
  
Faultline wanted the Wardens off their backs. Valkyrie and the Wardens wanted Dinah. Dinah wanted to stop feeling so lost all the time.  
  


* * *

  
Pacing was a remarkably stupid habit she had picked up somewhere along the line.  
  
Step step step step. Turn. Repeat.  
  
Elle, on some of her better days at least, liked to make a game of it, and so every time she turned around the room would look different to the way it did before.

Step step step step turn. Roman style columns and an open courtyard.  
  
What did it mean, to be a hero? It meant looking past the ends of her own arms, Dinah knew that.  
  
Step step step step turn. Trellises on the ceiling drooped with the weight of an expansive vine in bloom.  
  
It meant sacrificing your own wants for what other people needed.

Step step step ste-

_“You’re being pretty selfish, you know?”  
  
_ Shut up shut up shut up. Don’t look at her.  
  
 _“You could get them what they need. Don’t you want that?”  
  
_ “You know it’s not guaranteed to work like that.”  
  
 _“But it might,”_ the lilt in the voice was the same as Dinah remembered from being around the Undersiders; mocking and playful and bold as brass. _“Don’t you want to take a chance?”  
  
_ ‘Take a chance.’ Anyone would laugh at the idea of Dinah being forced to take a chance. After all, her power eliminated the need for such trifling things as ‘taking chances.’ It must have seen some opportunity written in the lines of her thoughts because it leapt for it.  
  
 _“And it would be so easy; after all, you already know most of what to say to make them dance to your script. What’s once more around the track, eh? You’ve got the VIP spot reserved for you anyway, what do you even have to worry about?”  
  
_ “The Simurgh could fuck everything up,” she said, considering the memory of the Simurgh drifting down to hover in front of her before everything went dark. “Again,” she finished blackly.  
  
 _“Eh, you never can tell with the bird-bitch. She basically wants what we want, so it’d only ever look like she’s screwing you over.”  
  
_ “It’s not worth it,” she hissed, “and I don’t want to do it again.”  
  
The rustling of the leaves was the only sound in the tunnel. Elle had gone silent.  
  
 _“But what if something happened to one of them? To one of your ‘_ friends _,’ hmm?”_ The words slowed down as the leaves rustled closer, twinned to the dull thud of Dinah’s heartbeat. _“That was always what got to you, do you remember?  
_

_“You simply cared. Too. M-"  
  
_ She spun around, but there was no one with her besides Elle, unaware that anything had transpired.  
  
Deceptively long and richly carpeted hallway with a bright light at the end of it.  
  


* * *

  
“Do you have authorisation to be here?” Asked the Dragon - Tooth? Teeth? She wasn’t sure - standing outside the gate.  
  
"Do you know that there's a 67.35% chance of you having to clean toilets in a refugee shelter for the next month if you don't pass me along to Golem in the next five minutes?"  
  
The lights on the impassive visor blinked once. "Right. Of course Miss Alcott.” He stood aside and waved her forward. “If you wait in the lobby then he’ll be down to meet you shortly.”  
  
She thanked him and walked through the double doors of the Wardens headquarters. Two potted plants wilted crisply in the corners adjacent to the door. Camera domes glared out from the corners of the room - the visible security - though the really important sensors were the ones too small to be seen.  
  
The secretary himself gave no indication of having noticed her beyond a glance over the top of his glasses before looking back to whatever crossword book he was probably hiding behind the desk.  
  
Dinah sat in one of the chairs and tossed a coin, each time predicting the outcome.  
  
The coin turned up heads for the twenty second time when Golem came out of the elevators, his costume clearly thrown on, though an attempt had apparently been made at neatness on his way down.  
  
She stood up and waved to him, moving to the elevator banks as he gathered himself, stopping a few steps away from him; close enough to see the way his hands slid towards the marble around his waist, but far enough away to make it look as though she felt safe.  
  
Safe? In this building? Pull the other one.  
  
“Is there something you-?”  
  
“Can we go somewhere else for this?” She asked, cutting him off. “There’s a 75.37% chance of this conversation going well if you do.”  
  
His fingers twitch and the lines of his posture turn solid before relaxing too far to be a natural gesture. “Yeah, of course,” he says to her as he looks slightly above her eyes. “Shall we go for a walk?”  
  
That would be fine. It would be about as unobservable as anywhere within the city could be with the Clairvoyant living in the Warden tower. “That sounds fine.”  
  
She turns around and pretends not to notice Golem shaking his no-doubt heavy costume properly into place before following.  
  


* * *

  
“So,” he begins as they leave the tower behind them, “what did you want to talk about - it’s not the world ending again is it?”  
  
The humour is dark enough to lose yourself in, but she laughs anyway. “No, not that I’m aware of. Shall we go through the park?”  
  
“Alright, sure thing.” He sounded resigned, probably expecting her to make this conversation unpleasant for him.  
  
“It’s for the best if you sit for this.” He shot her a look, probably hating the way she was already directing the conversation as well as that he was letting her. They sat down anyway.  
  
They sat on a bench overlooking the lake. It was out of place, amongst the city that still had swathes without power, this blue lake with a family of ducks paddling across the surface.  
  
She tossed the coin.  
  
“It’s not the end of the world,” she began, picking out the words she had rehearsed for this purpose, “but you probably aren’t going to want to hear this almost as much as if it were.”  
  
He was frowning, Dinah could tell. “I… shit.” She said, floundering. “It’s awful, you know? You predict something, tack a number onto it, and people listen like you’re President Pope. Then you try and talk for yourself and people sort of... lose interest. Not that they ignore you, it’s just that they don’t treat things that I haven’t pulled out of my crystal ball as equal to the things that I do, you know?”  
  
Golem looked at her quietly, the marking on his forehead glaring out like a third eye. “No,” he said carefully, “I can’t honestly say that I do.”  
  
“Well then that’s probably for the best because it sucks.” She really didn’t want to do this. It was a step off the beaten track and it could just as easily tip her off the side of a cliff.  
  
She tossed the coin.  
  
“What is this really about, Dinah?” He asked, patience hitting it’s limit, in lieu of her volunteering more. “Because I seriously doubt you got me out here just so you could bitch to me about your powers.”  
  
Shit. Now or never. Dog with a bone.  
  
“I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.” She took a deep breath in and held it until it felt like her chest might burst. “I have to be honest. I promised, promised myself I would be honest, but it’s hard because you won’t want to hear me out. Promise me?”  
  
“...” He looked at the bench opposite the two of them, where two of his wooden thumbs were duelling from out of the seat. “I’ll listen to you. You haven’t steered me wrong before.”  
  
The reassurance made her feel wretched, and it wrenched the words out of her. “I can’t see the future.”  
  
His eyes sharpened on her and the blank clay mask seemed suddenly lifeless.  
  
“At all. I’ve never seen the future from here or Brockton Bay or anywhere. At all.” It was too late to catch the bone now, all that was left was to launch after it and try and join it where it landed.  
  
“I was twenty nine when I died in a flash of gold. I didn’t even know I had powers until I was suddenly twelve years old again. That was the start.  
  
“After that, things would change slightly. I tried telling someone about what had happened, but who’s going to believe a twelve-year old claiming to be almost three times her own age? Even for capes it’s outlandish. But then Coil somehow found out and picked me up. He didn’t have much use for me that time, because I could only say that things would probably go a particular way. Somehow,” she said, “ _Jack Slash_ found out about what I’d told the heroes. And you, well, you know where that goes.  
  
“That would always be how it went. Either Jack Slash did it, or Scion decided to do it on his own. I can remember them all.”  
  
“So… all those times you gave predictions to Tay- to people, they were all made up?”  
  
“No. They were the truth. I knew that the things would happen with about that probability. I just made it seem like I was more precise than I am by adding more numbers onto the end. People are more likely to think you know what you’re talking about if you’re specific.”  
  
She tossed the coin again, and Golem pulled his hand out of the wood to catch it. “Heads,” she said as he opened his hand.  
  
Tails.  
  
“Then that whole thing with Jack Slash?”  
  
“That was true. I told you, I knew he would end the world because he’s done it before.”  
  
“No,” he said, the material of his glove creaking, “in L.A.  
  
“Ah. That.”  
  
“Yes,” he said quietly, his hands down by his sides. “ _That_.  
  
“I knew the broad strokes of where Jack would go, what he would try and do. There was never enough time to get the nitty-gritty after everything went-”  
  
A hand made of wood slid out of the bench and grabbed her fingers, stopping them from drumming a tune that wouldn’t ever be composed. Dinah hadn’t even realised she had been doing it. “Please skip to the end.”  
  
“Fine then. It was dumb luck that you managed to stop him when you did,” she said softly. “I’d honestly say it was nothing short of a miracle."  
  
The wooden hand clenched tighter around her own. It didn’t hurt at all.  
  
“I’d never seen it happen that we get so many capes to the end. Either they died fighting Jack or Endbringers or _whatever_ , there was never enough to truly accomplish anything at the end.  
  
“The reason I couldn’t see around Scion was that, by then, I _didn’t know_ what was going to happen next."  
  
Golem took his hand out of the wood and placed them very carefully on his knees. His voice, when he spoke, was tight. “So…why would you do it? Manipulate everyone to such an insane degree?”  
  
“It was Taylor,” she replied honestly. “That girl wanted so honestly to do the right thing that it would hurt to watch what she would - what she _could_ \- do for it. It’s hard not to be inspired by that sort of thing.”  
  
“And she never knew? She knew none of this?”  
  
“No. What she thought of my power wasn’t real, but it _had_ to seem real, like I honestly knew the exact odds for the possible outcomes of her actions. In the end, it just boiled down to an act to make her behave a certain way that worked the best before.”  
  
Golem’s shoulders shook with emotion, but his impassive and now vaguely threatening mask hid what it might be from her.  
  
Dinah took a deep breath in, then let it out. “And to you lot listening through his mask; just fucking bite the bullet and get someone to kill Teacher. He’ll never want to work with anyone and the longer you leave him to his own devices the worse he’ll get.”  
  
She pulled her fingers out of the wooden hand, shaking some life back into them, and stood up. “Goodbye Golem. I doubt I’ll see you around.”  
  
“Wait!” He yelled. “There’re other things-”  
  
She flipped another coin through the air towards him, the _ping_ of her thumbnail on metal ringing through the air. “Tails,” she called.  
  
“Heads."  
  
“There might be,” she replied with a wan smile, “but I’m afraid I can’t give you the answers.”  
  


_**Eidetic** _

_**-adjective:** of, pertaining to, or constituting visual imagery vividly experienced and readily reproducible with great accuracy and in great detail._

 


End file.
